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BRIEFER PAPERS READ IN 
CONFERENCES 



A. Libya as a Field of Research. By Oric Bates 

B. The International Character of Commercial History. By Abbott 

P. Usher 

C. Some New Manuscript Sources for the Study of Modern Com- 

merce. By N. S. B. Gras 

D. The Study of South American Commercial History. By Charles 

Lyon Chandler 

E. On the Economics of Slavery, 1815-1860. By Ulrich B. Phil- 

lips 

F. On the History of Pennsylvania, 1815-1860. By P. Orman Ray 

G. Historical Research in the Far West. Bv Katharine Coman 



Reprinted from the Annual Report of tlie American Historical Association 
for 1912, pages 137-156 




WASHINGTON 
19U 






D. OF n. 
SEP 17 U 



IX. BRIEFER PAPERS READ IN CONFERENCES. 



A. LIBYA AS A FIELD OF RESEARCH. By Oric Bates. 

B. THE INTERNATIONAL CHARACTER OF COMMERCIAL HISTORY. By 

Abbott P. Usher. 

C. SOME NEW MANUSCRIPT SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF MODERN 

COMMERCE. By N. S. B. Gras. 

D. THE STUDY OF SOUTH AMERICAN COMMERCIAL HISTORY. By 

Charles L. Chandler. 

E. ON THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY, 1815-18G0. By Ulrich B. Philups. 

F. ON THE HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1815-1860. By P. Orman Ray. 

G. HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN THE FAR ^YEST, By Katharine Coman. 



137 



A. LIBYA AS A FIELD OF RESEARCH. 



Read in the Conference on Ancient History, by Oric Bates. 



There is one region wliicli, although partially within the Minoan 
sphere, has been curiously neglected by students of the earUest 
Mediterranean cultures: the North African littoral zone. After four 
years of speciahzation in the history and ethno-geography of North 
Africa, I am convinced that before we can attain to a just under- 
standing of Mediterranean origins, we must pay far more attention 
than hitherto to the Libyan field. 

In the first place, Sergi's contention that, at a very remote period, 
there existed on both sides of the Mediterranean a homogeneous 
Afro-European or "Eurafrican" race is now supported by evidence 
much more serious than that which Sergi himself brought to bear 
upon the question. By the labors of other anthropologists the main 
features of his hypothesis have become established facts. Tliis being 
so, the study of ancient Libya is profoundly important if we are to 
arrive at any accurate knowledge of the various ethnical elements 
which constituted the Mmoan peoples and the Greeks and Romans of 
full classical times. In studying the ethnology of ancient Libya we 
are studying the ethnology of the basic element in Greece and Italy, 
and m the Iberian peninsula as well. 

Again, a very complex problem, which needs to be approached 
from the Libyan side, confronts the student of Semitic origins. Is 
there real justification for the recently arisen fashion of speaking of 
the Berber languages as "pro to-Semitic" ? The question can be 
answered only when modern philology has got to the bottom of the 
mysterious relationship observable between the Semitic languages on 
the one hand and the numerous neo-Libyan dialects on the other. 
When this problem is cleared up, we shall have a fact, or a set of facts, 
of the utmost importance to the Semitic scholar, the Egy}5tologist, 
and the student of Mediterranean pre-history in general. 

In regard to Libyan philology, two other points may be mentioned : 
First, that the Berlin school recognizes that the Libyan contribution 
to ancient Egy]Dtian language is an important one, while Maspero and 
his adherents tend to regard it as fundamental. Yet little modem 
work has been done under this head. The late Marquis de Roche- 
monteix instituted a comparison between Berber and Egyptian 

139 



140 AMEEICAN HISTOEICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Byntax, and I have myself endeavored to do the same for the vocabu- 
laries; but neither the labors of Rochemonteix nor my own attempts 
can be taken as more than initial steps in a field in which the philolo- 
gist, especially equipped, and equally famihar with the work of Basset, 
Motylinski, Masqueray, and others, in Berber studies, and ^ath that 
of Erman, Sethe, and Steindorff in Egyptian, could not fail to secure 
very valuable results. Secondly, despite de Vaux's new presentation 
of the Ugro-^\ltaic theory for the origin of Etruscan, here again we 
are in need of expert philological opinion to confute or to support the 
hypothesis of Brinton and Sergi, who looked for the solution of this 
gusestio vexata by means of Berber philology. 

To turn to questions more strictly historical, I vv'ould enumerate 
the following as typical problems demanding the serious attention of 
students of ancient history: 

1. The connection between Libya and Syria calls for further investi- 
gation than it has yet received from W. M. Miiller or from anyone 
else. Thus, it appears that the Hittites connived at one of the great 
Libyan invasions of the Nile Valley in the time of the Twentieth 
Dynasty, and everyone is famihar with the notices of Lubim or Lehabim 
mercenaries in the Old Testament. In the Libyan spoil hsts are 
enumerated objects which are almost certainly derived from Syria, 
as well as others obtained from northern sources; and m an Egyptian 
rehef showing the Egyptian assault on the Asiatic fortress of Satuna 
the garrison is represented as half Syrian and haK Libyan. With 
what part of Libya did the Syiian Semites of New Empire times have 
relations? Was there a sea traffic between the two regions? Is 
Daressy right in asserting that already the Semites had established 
factories and even colonies in North Africa ? Tliese are but some of 
the questions suggested by the known facts. 

2. In the case of the great Greek colony of Cyrene, the leadmg 
problem may be said to be the relationship existing between the 
colonists and the natives. It has been suspected that the historic 
alternation in the monarchical epoch of the names Battos and Ai'ke- 
silaos might point to the early existence of some sort of dual control 
in which Greeks and Libyans shared. I do not at present hold this 
view, but I am convinced that without an acquamtance with the 
temper and usuages of the Libyan inhabitants of CjTenaica, the 
internal history of Greek Africa is a sealed book. Tlie very names of 
most of the towns and hamlets in Cyrenaica — Sozusa, Taucheira, 
Damis, Barkd, etc. — are old Berber, as is also — despite Studniczka's 
elaborate relation of the name Kuprjvfj to a Greek radical KYP with 
the sense of dominor — the name of the metropohs itself. For the 
name is most easily explained as a Ilellenized form of the proto- 
Berber ^ pi. a^ Gyr, Igyren or ^ pi. '^J^ Eyr, Ikyren with 
the sense oi fontes or aquarum caput, a very probable designation 



LIBYA AS A FIELD OF EESEAECH. 141 

because of the copious water-supply of the site (cf. modern 
«j > for the value of the first radical; and the Arab <^^^ ^^^ as 

a designation for the site of Cyrene in which the locality is known 
because of its wonderful ''Fountain of Apollo")- Under these cir- 
cumstances it is merely absurd to attempt the mastery of this field 
without a scientific knowledge of the native population which the 
Greeks dispossessed of its heritage. 

3. What has just been said applies with even greater force to the 
case of Carthage, on account of the vigor of her colonizing activities, 
her extensive use of mercenaries, the freedom with which her colonists 
intermarried with the natives, her trade with Libya Interior and along 
the coast, and to that strange racial sympathy wliich Duveyrier, 
Barth, Slouschz, and others have noted as existing between the Ber- 
bers and the Semites. . Some features in Carthaginian sociology, which 
were long considered very obscure, have received explanation at the 
hands of modern students of Berber institutions. The soffetim or 
suffetes, for example, have their modern parallels among the Berbers, 
and several fundamental features in modern tribal governments recall 
similar ones at Carthage. Here again, therefore, the student who sets 
himself to disentangle the Semitic from the Libyan elements in 
Carthaginian liistory will hardly fail to meet with a rich reward. 

4. Every item wliich, either by a critical study of the ancient texts 
and monuments (Egyptian or classical), or by the comparative study 
of modern survivals, one is able to glean with regard to the pre-Islamic 
cultus, illuminates some point in Egyptian, Cyrenaic, or Carthaginian 
religion. The excellent work in this particular field of Toutain, 
Doutte, and other students in the brilliant new school of French schol- 
arship, has set a high standard for these researches, but has not 
exhausted the field. Thus, the nature of the god "Amon " anciently 
venerated at Siwah has become clear to us only recently, and until 
last year the affinity between the bull-god Gurzil of Corippus and 
^Mnevis of Heliopolis and similar conceptions, had not been pointed 
out. Many such elucidations remain to be made, not only with regard 
to the pagan divinities, but with regard to the saints of Northern 
Africa as well. In the field of African hagiography, for example, the 
work of Ewald Fall and Karl Maria Kaufmann at the desert sanctuary 
of St. Menas can not be called fiinished until critical study has deter- 
mined how much that saint's popularity was due to the incorporation 
in his legendary acts of those pagan Libyan elements which survive in 
Berber Moslem stories of great local sheikhs. 

The above are some of the topics for research offered by Hamitic 
North Africa. From the outset, as the subject has been so neglected, 
I may have suggested the objection that the field ofi'crs more in the 
way of problems than it does of sources of information which might 



142 AMEEIOAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

solve them. This is not so great a difficulty as to deprive the serious 
student of a reasonable hope of reward. 

In the first place, a study of modern Berber dialects, which number 
over forty, will some day serve for a work on Libyan antiquity erected 
on lines similar to those of Schrader's Spraclivergleichung und Urge- 
schicJite der Arier, and I am of those who dare to hope that something 
of value will eventually be wrung even from the so-called " Numidian" 
inscriptions. * 

In the second place, the prosecution of Libyan archeology on lines 
more scientific than any which have yet been followed is sure to abol- 
ish the current indifference among students of the Minoan civihzation 
toward North Africa. EasternLibya, at least, lay wellinside the ^linoan 
sphere. The fertile Cyrenaica is situated under Crete, at only a short 
distance from that island ; the Greek sponge fisher, bound for TripoH 
or Alexandria, still makes his first landfall in Cyrenaica, then turning 
westward or to the east. Among the Cretan hieroglyphs which Evans 
has collected he has, in his Scripta Minoa, signahzed one which is 
identical with the African silphium-plant as conventionahzed later on 
Cyrenaic coins. On the two occasions when I have been in Cyrenaica 
I have seen IMuioan objects reported — in one case on authority cer- 
tainly good — to have been found on the spot. The great rock-cut 
forts of the interior of the Sanjak of Barkah strongly recall similar 
structures in early Greece. These are some of the reasons for believ- 
ing that the prospects for well-conducted excavation in Tripolitana 
or the Marmaric littoral vdll result in finds which will add greatly to 
our knowledge of the early Aegean world. 

In the third place, in the matter of textual evidence the classical 
notices and those of the Byzantine ^Titers are not so easil}^ exhausted 
as would at first be supposed. African hagiography and patristic lit- 
erature have, doubtless, still much to yield. New cpigrapliical material 
bearing on the Libyan question will soon begin to come in from Tri- 
poHtana and ^Marocco, wliile any day may see the recovery in Egj^pt of 
new documentary evidence. The Arabic sources, finally, demand a 
thorough ransacking, and an attempt should be made to trace the 
facts embodied in the later Arabic historians and geographers to their 
sources. 

In conclusion, I would recall that one of the figures prominent in 
Berber studies shortly after their inception was an American, the 
consul Hodgson, whose name is still generously remembered in France 
and Algeria. It is to be hoped that, when the European reconquest 
of Marocco and Tripohtana are accomplished facts, and when these 
new fields of North African research are thrown open to investigation, 
American scholars wlW not be wholly insensible to the stimulus to 
Libyan studies which ^vl[l result. 



B. T9E INTERNATIONAL CHARACTER OF COMMERCIAL HISTORY. 



Read in the Conference on Modem History, by Abbott P. Usher, of Cornell 

University. 



I should like to add a few words to Prof, Gay's remarks upon the 
international character of many of the larger problems of commercial 
history. We all recognize the simple literary virtue of unity when 
it is presented to us as a matter of abstract principle, but as usual 
the actual practice of the virtue is not easy. It is not always 
clear just what unity must be recognized. In much historical work, 
national boundaries set off the limits of the subject, and not infre- 
quently some deposit of manuscript material will be so intimately 
connected with the subject that the most natural limits will be imposed 
and defined by the material available in that repository. In commer- 
cial history the relation of the subject matter to the source material 
is different. The subject is at times essentially international, 
although the source material is always affected by political bound- 
aries and the character of the political organization of the various 
regions involved. It is in such cases that the practice of the most 
elementary virtue of literary composition becomes so difficult. It is 
hard to foUow the subject wherever it goes, and to avoid the tempta- 
tion of writing up particular masses of material rather than writing 
upon the subject. 

Two illustrations of this difficulty come to mind: Prof. Gustav 
SchmoUer's study of the Prussian grain trade in the "Acta Borussica," 
and the problems involved in the history of the bill of exchange. 
In both of these instances the subject is distinctly international, 
but in each case attempts have been made to approach the problem 
from a national point of view. 

The official character of the great series of "Acta Borussica" 
naturally confined Prof. Schmoller to the limitations of a Prussian 
point of view, but in the study of the grain trade the limitation was sin- 
gularly unfortunate. The Prussian State before and during the reign 
of Frederick the Great was in the peculiar position of having the 
most important grain-producing districts of northern Germany just 
outside its borders. Mecklenburg on the north and the cereal dis- 
tricts of Poland to the east were the most considerable sources of 
supply. The Magdeburg district alone was within the boundaries 
of the Kingdom. Under these circimistances, the controlling facts 

143 



144 AMEEICAN HISTOEICAL ASSOCIATIOlSr. 

of grain-trade policy lay in tlie relation of these outlying sources of 
supply to the needs of Prussia, and in the interference of Prussian 
policy with the trade between Poland and the Baltic ports. Further- 
more, the partitions of Poland exerted a profound influence upon the 
whole commercial situation by altering the relation of some of these 
cereal districts to political boundaries. The subject is thus decisively 
international and the essential unity is that of the whole commercial 
movement. 

The history of the bill of exchange presents a similar difficulty. 
It can not be written from the archives of any single country. One 
can not limit researches to the repositories of Italy as Goldschmidt 
has done, nor confine one's attention to a single fair systeni like 
Des Marez with reference to the credit instruments of the Flemish 
fairs. The study must pass in review the various forms of credit 
instruments in all the important financial centers of the different 
periods. The bill must be followed from Italy northward. Parts 
of the legal history of the instrument will be written from Italian 
and French archives. Much of the history of the rise of regular 
dealing in bills will be written from French, Flemish, and English 
archives. In such a subject national boundaries count for little and 
unless the cosmopolitan character of the problem is frankly recognized 
nothing of permanent value will be accomplished. Research under 
these conditions is difficult but the rewards are correspondingly great, 
for few subjects will throw so much light upon the history of modem 
commerce. 



SOME NEW MANUSCRIPT SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF MODERN 

COMMERCE. 



Read in the Conference on Modem History by N. S. B. Gras, of Clark College. 



Two points in Prof. Gay's paper appeal to me as of prime impor- 
tance — commercial stages and new sources, the former being the fun- 
damental need in the history of commerce and the latter holding out 
some prospect that the need may be met. Probably few have been 
satisfied with the stages of SchmoUer and Biicher, which are so largely 
pohtical in character. Most would perhaps accept the two first 
stages, village and town economy, as distinct in commercial history. 
But what comes next? Is it territorial or national economy? I 
prefer to hold that it is neither the one nor the other but metropolitan 
economy. Just what national economy is in the history of commerce 
I have no clear conception apart from political organization. Na- 
tional economy seems to be, as far as trade goes, a matter of poten- 
tiahty rather than of reality. 

What I have to add to the discussion to-day chiefly concerns the 
subject of the new sources which may be utilized by, him whose ambi- 
tion it is to reap a harvest in the fields of the history of trade and 
commerce, and I may add, by him who has the courage to enter and 
the pertinacity to continue the work. 

The particular sources in question are the English customs records 
which contain detailed information for the study of modern trade. 
In general there are five groups of such sources, corresponding to the 
following five periods : 

1066-1204, only a few documents remain; 

1204-1275, only smnmary accounts are extant; 

1275-1565, a splendid set of detailed accounts; 

1565-1800, the Port Books; 

1800-present, practically only summaries. 
It is chiefly to the newly discovered, or the rediscovered, documents 
of the period 1565-1800 that I wish to call attention. Though men- 
tioned in early official reports, and though long known to a few 
Record OflB.ce officials, they were made available only last winter. 
Their present accessibility we owe very largely to the zeal of Mr. 
Hubert Hall. 

28333°— 14 10 145 



146 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

In point of bulk the Port Books are to be reckoned only in cart- 
loads, and in point of numbers only in thousands, probably 25. They 
are all in book form but vary much in size, from the blank volume of 
a petty outport to the ponderous tome of the metropolis with its 500 
odd skins. On the whole, this series, in spite of many vicissitudes of 
fortune and change of residence, is in a good state of preservation, 
though often so closely written as to make reading tedious. Prob- 
ably, however, the student would be more repelled by mere bulk. 
That this is unfortunate will, I think, appear from an accoimt of the 
kind of infonnation locked up in their uninviting covers. 

Since only formal differences divide the series of Port Books from 
the earher series of Customs Accounts above mentioned, what is said 
of the former will equally apply to the latter. In each entry are 
found the following matters : 

Date of month and the year; 

Name of the ship and at times its tonnage ; 

Name of the master and shippers ; 

Destination in case of export and place of shipment in case of 
import ; 

Amount and kind of goods, and sometimes the value; 

Customs and subsidies paid. 
Thus not only is the student furnished with plenteous material but 
he is given very precise information upon subjects of great moment. 
This makes possible a statistical analysis of English trade which is 
apparently unique. Just as in the earher Customs Accounts we find 
considerable information about the dealings of the Staplers, so in the 
Port Books we are supplied with sources for the study of the joint 
stock companies hitherto unused. Just as in the earlier series we are 
able to trace the incoming of new luxuries, so in the latter we can 
follow the increase in the exportation of home-made articles of ever 
increasing fineness and value. In the former documents we see as 
early as the fifteenth century, the exportation of the products of a 
nascent domestic system, such as coverlets, caps, shoes, and iron- 
wares (otherwise unknown to us), and in the latter the exportation 
of the products of the later stages of the same domestic system. But 
of greater importance still, we are furnished with materials of service 
in any effort to solve what Prof. Gay has said to be of great impor- 
tance, the development of the middleman and the widening of the 
market. 

But for the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centiu'ies there 
is a further som-ce as yet unknown and inaccessible to the student of 
Enghsh cormnerce. I refer to what may loosely be called Coast 
Bonds. Destruction of these documents, which are to be numbered 
only in the hundreds of thousands, has been contemplated, but it is to 
be hoped that this will not be carried out. 



NEW SOURCES FOE STUDY OF MODERN COMMERCE. 147 

These Coast Bonds are small slips of parchment recording coast 
shipments, and valuable for the history of the development of local 
industries as well as for tlie indication they give of the decrease or 
increase in the trade of specific ports and districts; but most of all 
will they be of service to the investigator of the development of the 
domestic market. 

In conclusion I have but tliree remarks to make. The subject 
of prime importance which needs investigation is the evolution of 
commercial stages. Material of great value in this connection is to 
be found in the above-mentioned sources for the period 1275-1800. 
And lastly, it would be of inestimable service if some one would hst 
and characterize the manuscripts deahng with trade to be found in 
the various European, and especially the English, archives. 



D. THE STUDY OF SOUTH AMERICAN COMMERCIAL HISTORY. 



Remarks in the Conference on Modem History, by Charles Lyon Chandler, 

Department of State. 



There are few fields of historical study more neglected to-day than 
the commercial history of South America. There are few arms of 
the great sea of historical investigation which have been so unex- 
plored; almost no part of it has been the subject of critical historical 
research by our scholars. I will confine myself to merely indicating 
a few of the more important topics that could be worked up into 
useful theses. 

Why, for instance, should Lima have 87,000 people and Buenos 
Aires 46,000 in 1810, while a hundred years later the Ai'gentme 
capital had 1,200,000 people as compared with the Peruvian capital's 
160,000? Was the so-called monopohstic system of the Spanish 
and Portuguese colonial governments really so exclusive? Think 
what an mteresting comparison could be drawn between the Guipuz- 
coan Company in Venezuela and the British East India Company 
and other great chartered companies. The history of slavery and 
of the slave trade in colonial South America is another fascinating 
topic. What became of the 20,000 negroes who were in Buenos 
Aires in 1810? How many of them, after slavery was abolished in 
1813, perished in the crossing of the Andes in San Martin's negro 
regiments in January and February, 1817? 

To come down to more modern times, interesting studies might 
be written on the development of shipping between South America 
and the rest of the world from the foundation of the Pacific Steam 
Navigation Company by a Massachusetts man, WilUam Wheelwright, 
in 1840 — or even from Capt. Uriah Bunker's voyage from Nantucket 
to Brazil in 1774 — to the present time; or on the reasons why South 
America makes six-sevenths of her purchases from Europe, and only 
one-seventh from the United States, in this year 1912. 

For those who continuously decry the absolutism of the Spanish 
colonial regime, a study of the various consulates or chambers of 
commerce that existed in the larger Spanish colonial cities will be 
interesting and profitable. What indirect influences did the one 
established at Buenos Aires in 1791 have on quickening the spirit 
of freedom and economic independence therein? That of Lima, 
148 



«THE STUDY OF SOUTH AMERICAN COMMERCIAL HISTORY. 149 

which existed from 1619 to 1821, deserves especial study. The ordi- 
nance of the Viceroy Prince of Esquilache, of December 20, 1619 — 
not long after the first House of Burgesses had met at Jamestown, 
Va. — gave the "Consulate of the Merchants of this City of the Kings, 
of the Kingdoms and Provinces of Peru, Tierra Firma and Chile, and 
of those who may transact business therein with the Kingdoms of 
Spain and New Spain," jurisdiction over all commercial matters and 
lawsuits between merchants, partners, brokers, and agents; in short, 
almost compete control of everything relatmg to commercial matters, 
including disputes over wages between masters of vessels and seamen. 
On the 2d of January of each year the ''business men or merchants, 
married or widowers, over 25 years of age, with their own business 
houses, not being foreigners or lawyers," were summoned to vote 
for the members of this consulate of commerce. This body had an 
important and recognized position wherever it was estabhshed. Its 
indirect control over the fuiances often caused it to exert much influ- 
ence over the pohcy and actions of the viceroys or others in authority, 
and it must be regarded, viewed in the hght of the times in which 
it existed, as a strictly representative body exercising a direct influ- 
ence on the administration of the government of this important 
Spanish colony. Thus the Calle Mercadores in Lima, the Street of 
the Merchants, where these merchant-electors mostly lived, may be 
considered the cradle of representative institutions in South America. 



E. ON THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY, 1815-1860. 



Remarks in the Conference on American History, by U. B. Phillips, University of 

Michigan. 



In Prof. Dodd's paper, which all must agree is highly suggestive 
and admirable, I must, however, take issue with the assertion that 
slaves offered the most profitable investment for capital in the ante 
beUum South. If the statement were applied only to the periods 
when slave prices were very low, it might be unexceptionable; but 
when made sweepingly it may easily be refuted. The closing of the 
African slave-trade and the development of cotton production drove 
up the price of "prime field hands" from an average of about $300 
a head in 1790 to an average of from $1,600 to $1,800 in 1860, and 
simultaneously drove down the price of cotton from a range of 20 to 
40 cents a pound about the beginning of the nineteenth century to 
a range of 10 to 12 cents in the decade of the fifties. The prices of 
both slaves and cotton fluctuated actively through the whole ante 
bellum time, and their fluctuations for brief periods were often paral- 
lel. But in the long run slave prices went up tremendously while 
cotton prices went down. Now the production of cotton was by far 
the chief employment of slave labor, and between 1820 and 1860 no 
great changes were made in the system of cotton culture nor, so far 
as one may judge, in the per capita output by the slaves employed 
in the industry. We are driven to the conclusion that in the later 
ante bellum decades slave prices were so high that the investment 
could be made to yield even a moderately good return only through 
the most efficient management and in the districts most favorable 
for the production of the plantation staples. As an index to the 
situation it may be observed that several railroad companies which 
bought slaves to constitute their track gangs in the thirties became 
convinced in the forties and fifties that hired labor was the cheaper, 
and with one accord sold off their slaves. The fluctuations of the 
slave market ^ave occasional opportunity for profitable speculation, 
but seldom — virtually never after the twenties — did slave labor in the 
United States permit industrial investment with large rates of profit. 

On the general subject of the ante beUum period, a principal need 
in my opinion is the study of economic and social conditions district 
by district throughout the country, from aU discoverable uncon- 
scious as well as conscious material, and the study of political policies 
150 



ON THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY. 151 

and campaigns as induced by these economic and social conditions. 
As between economic and social affairs, I think the former have 
recently received the greater attention, but the latter are in many 
connections the more important. In a recent work, for example, 
Prof. Dodd draws an analogy between the position of the pro-slavery 
men and that of present-day champions of the protective tariff, 
strictly on the ground of vested interests. lie here neglects the 
principal factor in the situation. Whereas the North in general was 
considering only the institution of slavery, the South was confronted 
with the problem of racial adjustments as its paramount considera- 
tion. The two sections did not face the same issue, nor, so to say, 
did they speak the same language. Their arguments never met, but 
constantly glanced past one another. The historian who would give 
a sound exposition of the great issues must be critically cognizant of 
all the doctrines influential in the period of which he treats; he must 
view them all as phenomena and be dominated by no one of them. 
The subservience to the abolitionist tradition, for example, which 
has characterized most of the writing of American history to the 
present day, vitiates much that has been printed and necessitates 
new studies with broader interpretations. 

It is probable that every important political group in American 
history has put forward as many false issues and arguments as it 
has true ones. Whether John Quincy Adams really thought that 
the "sacred right of petition" was endangered by the Atherton reso- 
lutions; whether the abolitionists believed that slaves in the South 
were driven to death for the greater profit of their masters, or that 
emancipation in the British West Indies did not prostrate industry; 
whether the pro-slavery leaders reaUy thought that there was an 
economic need for the extension of slavery into California or Kansas; 
whether William L. Yancey in advocating the reopening of the 
African slave trade was prompted by a belief in its desirability and 
feasibility, or whether he merely raised the issue in order to produce 
a new sense of southern grievance and thereby strengthen the move- 
ment for southern independence — all these and many similar ques- 
tions are interesting, and some of them vital. But most of them, and 
most of the vastly larger questions of sectional divergence and con- 
flict, as well as many questions of nonsectional character, require for 
their understanding a knowledge of every sort of historical material 
bearing upon them, and require also a familiarity with the country 
to be gained only by travel and sojourn. 



F. ON THE HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1815-1860. 



Remarks in the Conference on American History, by P. Orman Ray, The Pennsyl- 
vania State College. 



The liistory of Pennsylvania between 1815 and 1860 furnishes a 
number of profitable subjects for investigation. I would suggest 
(1) a careful study of Pennsylvania politics between 1815 and 1828. 
Such a study would cover the contest between Findlay and Hiester 
for the governorship, the bickerings and influence of the Irish editors, 
John Binns of the Democratic Press and William Duane of the 
Aurora; the beginnings of the convention system of nominations, 
the early movement for high protection and internal improvements, 
the decline of the commercial class and the rise of the manufacturing 
interests, and the growth of Jacksonian Democracy in Pennsylvania. 

(2) While much has already been written on the economic liistory 
of Pennsylvania, much remains to be written, and to the ambitious 
student in this field of historical work I would especially commend 
the financial history of the State. 

(3) The contest for free schools, culminating in the enactment of 
the school law of 1834 and the attempt to repeal it at the next session 
of the legislature, has been treated on its formal documentary side in 
Wickersham 's ' ' History of Education in Pennsylvania." It remains, 
however, for some one to correlate this great struggle w^ith the con- 
temporaneous political, economic, sectional, and denominational 
interests. 

(-1) To the list of biographies suggested by preceding speakers, I 
would add a life of Stephen Girard, the founder of Girard College 
and possibly the greatest financier of his day. There is said to be 
a vast amount of Gu-ard 's correspondence, now in the possession of 
the trustees of the Girard estate, which has not yet been drawn upon 
by any biographer. 

(5) One of the most famous and important contests in the Penn- 
sylvania Legislature occurred in 1845-46 over the right to construct 
a railroad from Philadelpliia or Ilarrisburg to Pittsburgh. The 
contending parties were the Baltimore and Ohio Kailroad Company 
and the company which soon became the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company. Tlie struggle between them is important Jiot only as a 
phase of the rivalry between Philadelphia and Baltimore for the 
152 



ON" THE HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1815-1860. 153 

trade of the West, but because it serves to suggest a profitable sub- 
ject for investigation in the field of practical politics in other States 
as well as in Pennsylvania. Such a study might be entitled "Early 
Railroads and State Legislatures." The investigation should include 
not only an examination of the legislative proceedings which preceded 
and attended the granting of early railway franchises and the enact- 
ment of other legislation incidental to the construction and growth 
of railways, but should also include the connection of railway com- 
panies with local and State politics, particularly as related to the 
choice of members of the legislatures. 

(G) In the period we are considering, a number of State constitu- 
tional conventions met. The proceedings of these conventions 
would furnish the basis for a series of profitable investigations. I 
would suggest an analysis of the debates and votes in the several 
conventions (a) upon the subject of the qualifications for voting and 
holding office, (6) upon the limitations to be placed upon the legis- 
latures, and (c) upon the subjects of canals, railways, and banks. 

(7) Tlie movements for the abolition of imprisonment for debt and 
for an elective State judiciary seem to be suitable subjects for in- 
vestigation; also, the agitation for and against the enactment of 
a prohibitory liqiior law in the early fifties. From an extended 
examination of newspapers for these years in connection with work 
upon another subject, I was much impressed with the amount of 
space devoted to this phase of the temperance question at a time when 
the slavery question is commonly supposed to have been uppermost 
in politics. I am incUned to think that careful investigation would 
show that the liquor-law agitation was a factor m breaking down 
party lines in the North between 1850 and 1856, second m importance 
only to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The thorough 
treatment of this subject for the entire country would, it seems to 
me, be rather too large an undertaking for a single investigator. I 
would recommend a series of studies, each study hmited to a small 
group of States. 

(8) Finally, I would suggest a series of intensive studies in the 
different presidential campaigns occurring between 1815 and 1860. 
In view of what has already been done in his own seminary along 
this line, our chairman is in a better position than I to express an 
authoritative opinion regarding what may be accomphshed in this 
field. I, for one, hope that the day is not far distant when we shall 
see the publication of a series of carefully prepared monographs 
covering all the presidential campaigns prior to 1861. 



G. HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN THE FAR WEST. 



Read iu the Conference on American History, by Katharine Coman, Wellesley 

College. 



When by the Louisiajia Piu-chase and the treat}' of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo the United States Government trebled its territory, there 
were added to the national domain, not onl}" vast resources — 
agricultural, mineral, and commercial — and area for the making of 
22 States, but powerful social and political forces. The exploration, 
exploitation, and civilization of the Louisiana Territory summoned 
American citizens to deeds of courage, endurance, and seK-sacrifice. 
The deeds of those men of the westward migration, Jedidiah Smith, 
Marcus Wliitman, Gov. Robinson, and scores of other influential 
leaders have been duly chronicled. Conscious that they were 
working for posterity, many of these frontiersmen kept journals, 
some of them ill-spelled, scrappy, and often in error as to latitude 
and longitude, yet they give the essential facts. Timothy Flint 
first saw the importance of preserving these "human documents." 
Not content with recording his own experiences and observations 
along the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers, he edited and published 
the Pattie Narrative. Elliott Coues brought out an important 
series of journals, including those of Zebulon M. Pike, Lewis and 
Clark, Jacob Fowler, Charles Larpenteur, and J. W. Powell. But 
the historian of the Far West is above all indebted to Reuben G. 
Thwaites, 23 of whose 30 volumes of "Early Western Travels" 
present the journals of men who knew the land beyond the Mississippi. 
The several fur companies, too, did then* part in writing history. 
The Missouri Fur Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Compan}^, 
above all. Aster's creation, the American Fur Company, kept records 
and letter files that contain much of lasting import. These musty 
papers, together with personal letters and newspaper files from 
frontier towns, have been thoroughly scarciied by Maj. PL M. Chitten- 
den, and his "History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West" 
affords firm treading for the student who would understand this 
pioneer industry. 

Fortunately local patriotism has fostered the keeping of historical 
records. Hardly was a State organized and its political boundaries 
delimited, when a State historical association was formed. Notable 
among these local bodies are the Oregon Historical Association and 
the Oregon Pioneer Association, the latter having published a series 
of Transactions that covers 40 years and includes such papers as 
154 



HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN THE PAR WEST. 155 

Mrs. Whitman's Journal and the McLoughlin Document. The 
State historical associations of Washington, Missouri, Kansas, and 
Texas have achieved results hardly loss significant. One might 
mention a score of individual historians, laymen, and professionals, 
whose labors in the western field have been zealous and fruitful. 
The Nestor of the chroniclers of the Far West is Hubert Howe 
Bancroft, president of the Pacific coast branch of the American 
Historical Association. The 35 volumes of his "History of the 
Pacific Coast States" constitute a mine of information on which all 
subsequent historians must rely for suggestion as to the course of 
events and direction as to sources. 

The Bancroft Collection, now in the library of the University of 
CaUfornia, is the most considerable private collection of books, 
manuscripts, and transcripts, notably the Vallejo papers, but the 
number of original documents at Santa Fe and the Latter Day 
Saints' Historian's Office at Salt Lake City is of no less significance. 
The public library of Los Angeles has gathered a large number of 
authenticated copies of the journals of Spanish explorers, but its 
most important original document is the report of the "Mercury" 
case, the only record of the proceedings of a Spanish court against 
Yankee smugglers represented in any American library. Tlie State 
library at Sacramento has little to illustrate the Mexican period of 
California history, but for the American period its collection of files 
of newspapers and magazines. State documents, biographical sketches, 
etc., is unrivaled. The "Index of Economic Material" (1849-1904), 
compiled by Miss A. R. Hasse under the auspices of the Carnegie 
Institution, has rendered tliis material easy of access. 

There is a vast amount of interesting data still extant, but in 
highly perishable form, e. g., in the memories of living men whose 
partial but vivid knowledge of events should be wricten down before 
it passes beyond our reach. The reminiscences of such men as J. J. 
Warner, Josiah Belden, J. B. Chiles, J. Minto, William Jennings, etc., 
are among the most important manuscripts in the Bancroft Collec- 
tion. Equally in danger of destruction are the letters and family 
papers, business records, and book collections that remain in private 
hands subject to aU the chances of fire and flood, neglect, and per- 
sonal whim. Gov. Abernethy's papers, of much value to the histo- 
rian, are stiU in private hands. 

The San Francisco fire swept large collections, both public and 
private, into oblivion. The Public Library lost 140,000 volumes, 
including complete files of early newspapers, the California Star, the 
Cahfornian, and Alta California. The European portion of the 
Sutro Library went up in smoke, but the Spanish- American material, 
largely manuscripts of Mexican origin, escaped. The Spanish 
archives, records, and land grants gathered from the missions and 



156 AMEEICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION". 

presidios of Upper California were in charge of the United. States 
surveyor and were housed in an inner room of the land office on 
Montgomery Street. The Library of Congress had made an un- 
successful effort to have these irreplaceable documents removed to 
Washington. There was sufficient delay in the burning of that 
section of San Francisco to have made possible the saving of the 
contents of the Land Office, but no one was at hand who seems to 
have felt responsible for the task. The loss was irreparable. There 
are considerable transcripts in the Bancroft Collection, but the 
authentic data for a history of land titles in California are lost. 
Another mass of undigested history destroyed in this conflagration 
was the records of the Alaska Commercial Company, successor to 
the Kussian-American Fur Company. Another collection of even 
greater interest were the carefully kept records of the Wells-Fargo 
Express Company. For the 20 years during wliich mining was the 
leading industry of the far West, the Wells-Fargo was the sine qua 
non of success, since their pack trains furnished the only means of 
getting the gold or silver or copper to market. The history of this 
great company is replete with adventure, and was soon to have been 
written up, but flames sv»^ept away every vestige of the material. 
So that the early history of the Wells-Fargo Express Company can 
never be written. 

Highly commendable is the zeal of the students of western history 
to utilize all material that remains and to discover its true meaning. 
Prof. Joseph Schafer, for example, spent a year rummaging tlirough 
the Hudson's Bay Company's records in London and published 
some of the results in the American Historical Review — the corre- 
spondence of Sir George Simpson, a series of letters that must radically 
modify the previous interpretation put upon the policy of the Great 
Company toward American settlers in Oregon. The Hittells, Theo- 
dore H. and John S., have spent their lives on the history of Cali- 
fornia with admirable result. The Academy of Pacific Coast History 
has printed a series of scholarly translations of the journals of the 
Spanish explorers. The journals of Jedidiah Smith, the well-known 
fur trader, have been in good part recovered, and a biography based 
upon all available data is ready for the press. The Champlain 
Society of Canada is to publish the journals of David Thompson, 
pioneer geographer, who so clearly foresaw the political significance 
of the Columbia River to Great Britain. 

The material is steadily accumulating, but the philosopliicf 
history of the Far West remains to be written. No one has under- 
taken to discover and adequately estimate the forces, social, political, 
and economic, that have transformed the materialistic and indi- 
vidualistic creed of these frontier communities into an organized 
demand for a better civilization than has obtained "back east." 



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